Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T19:43:29.777Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Habitat and fig characteristics influence the bird assemblage and network properties of fig trees from Xishuangbanna, South-West China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

Sawat Sanitjan  and
Jin Chen
Sawat Sanitjan
Affiliation:
Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, Yunnan 666303, China Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, China
Jin Chen*
Affiliation:
Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, Yunnan 666303, China
*
1Corresponding author: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

To understand how fruit tree characteristics and microhabitats shape the assemblage of birds on fig trees and the pattern of fig–bird interactions, we observed and recorded, over 96 d and 816 h, the frugivorous birds visiting 32 individual trees belonging to 14 species of Ficus that were distributed across four different sites. A total of 30 bird species were recorded as eating figs, comprising 66.7% of the total number of frugivorous bird species recorded at the four sites. Small passerine birds such as bulbuls were the dominant frugivores for fig species. The number of bird species visiting different fig trees was significantly influenced by the crop size and canopy volume. Fruit colour and fruit size did not significantly influence the number of bird species, whereas habitats appeared to influence the composition of visiting birds. The fig–frugivorous bird interaction was asymmetrically structured, and the degree of nestedness appeared to be influenced by the forest type and degree of disturbance: the degree of nestedness in non-limestone forest tended to be higher than limestone forest; forest with less disturbance tend to be more nested compared with the open forest with high disturbance.

Keywords

canopy widthcrop sizeFicusfig-eating birdsfruit colourfruit sizenested subset analysistree height
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , March 2009 , pp. 161 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

LITERATURE CITED

BALASUBRAMANIAN, P. 1996. Interactions between fruit-eating birds and bird-dispersed plants in the tropical dry evergreen forest of Point Calimere, South India. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 93:428–441.Google Scholar
BASCOMPTE, J. & JORDANO, P. 2007. Plant–animal mutualistic networks: the architecture of biodiversity. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 38:567–593.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BASCOMPTE, J., JORDANO, P., MELIÁN, C. J. & OLESEN, J. M. 2003. The nested assembly of plant–animal mutualistic networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 102:5443–5447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BERG, C. C. 1989. Classification and distribution of Ficus. Experientia 45:605–611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BORGIA, G. & KEAGY, J. 2006. An inverse relationship between decoration and food colour presences in satin bowerbirds does not support the sensory drive hypothesis. Animal Behaviour 72:1125–1133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BRAWN, J. D., ROBINSON, S. K. & THOMPSON, F. R. 2001. The role of disturbance in ecology and conservation of birds. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 32:251–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CAO, M., ZHANG, J., FENG, Z., DENG, J. & DENG, X. 1996. Tree species composition of a seasonal rain forest in Xishuangbanna, southwest China. Tropical Ecology 37:183–192.Google Scholar
CORLETT, R. T. 1996. Characteristics of vertebrate-dispersed fruits in Hong Kong. Journal of Tropical Ecology 12:819–833.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CORLETT, R. T. 1998. Frugivory and seed dispersal by vertebrates in the Oriental (Indomalayan) region. Biological Reviews 73:413–448.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
CUTLER, A. H. 1994. Nested biotas and biological conservation: metrics, mechanisms, and meaning of nestedness. Landscape and Urban Planning 28:73–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FLEMING, T. H. 1981. Fecundity, fruiting pattern, and seed dispersal in Piper amalago (Piperaceae), a bat-dispersed tropical shrub. Oecologia 51:42–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
GIL-TENA, A., SAURA, S. & BROTONS, L. 2007. Effects of forest composition and structure on bird species richness in a Mediterranean context: implications for forest ecosystem management. Forest Ecology and Management 242:470–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GRYJ, E. O. & DOMINGUEZ, A. C. 1996. Fruit removal and postdispersal survivorship in the tropical dry forest shrub Erythroxylum havanense: ecological and evolutionary implications. Oecologia 108:368–374.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
GUIMARÃES, P. R., RICO-GRAY, V., FURTADO DOS REIS, S. & THOMPSON, J. N. 2006. Asymmetries in specialization in ant–plant mutualistic networks. Proceedings of the Royal Society, series B 273:2041–2047.Google ScholarPubMed
HEINDL, M. & CURIO, E. 1999. Observations of frugivorous birds at fruit-bearing plants in the North Negros Forest Reserve, Philippines. Ecotropica 5:157–181.Google Scholar
HOWE, H. F. & DESTEVEN, D. 1979. Fruit production, migrant bird visitation, and seed dispersal of Guarea glabra in Panama. Oecologia 39:185–196.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
HOWE, H. F. & VANDE KERCKHOVE, G. A. 1979. Fecundity and seed dispersal of a tropical tree. Ecology 60:180–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JANZEN, D. H. 1979. How to be a fig. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 10:13–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
JORDANO, P., BASCOMPTE, J. & OLESEN, J. M. 2003. Invariant properties in coevolutionary networks of plant–animal interactions. Ecology Letters 6:69–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KALKO, E. K., HERRE, E. A. & HANDLEY, C. O. 1996. Relation of fig fruit characteristics to fruit-eating bats in the New and Old World tropics. Journal of Biogeography 23:565–576.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KANNAN, R. & JAMES, D. A. 1999. Fruiting phenology and the conservation of the Great Pied Hornbill (Buceros bicornis) in Western Ghats of Southern India. Biotropica 31:167–177.Google Scholar
KINNAIRD, M. F. & O'BRIEN, T. G. 2005. Fast foods of the forest: the influence of figs on primates and hornbills across Wallace's line. Pp. 155–184 in Dew, J. L. & Boubli, J. P. (eds). Tropical fruits and frugivores: the search for strong interactors. Springer Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KINNAIRD, M. F., O'BRIEN, T. G. & SURYADI, S. 1996. Population fluctuation in Sulawesi Red-knobbed Hornbills: tracking figs in space and time. Auk 113:431–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KISSLING, W. D., RAHBEK, C. & BÖHNING-GAESE, K. 2007. Food plant diversity as broad-scale determinant of avian frugivore richness. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274:799–808.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
KORINE, C., KALKO, E. K. V. & HERRE, E. A. 2000. Fruit characteristics and factors affecting fruit removal in a Panamanian community of strangler figs. Oecologia 123:560–568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LAMBERT, F. & MARSHALL, A. G. 1991. Keystone characteristics of bird-dispersed Ficus in a Malaysian lowland rain forest. Journal of Ecology 79:793–809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LEIGHTON, M. & LEIGHTON, D. R. 1983. Vertebrate responses to fruiting seasonality within a Bornean rainforest. Pp. 181–209 in Sutton, S. L., Whitmore, T. C. & Chadwick, A. C. (eds). Tropical rain forests: ecology and management. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford.Google Scholar
LEKAGUL, B. & ROUND, P. D. 1991. A guide to the birds of Thailand (3rd edition). Saha Karn Bhaet, Bangkok. 457 pp.Google Scholar
LOMOLINO, M. V. 1996. Investigating causality of nestedness of insular communities: selective immigrations or extinctions? Journal of Biogeography 23:699–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MACKINNON, J. & PHILLIPPS, K. 2000. A field guide to the birds of China. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 571 pp.Google Scholar
MARTÍNEZ-MORALES, M. A. 2005. Nested species assemblages as a tool to detect sensitivity to forest fragmentation: the case of cloud forest birds. Oikos 108:634–642.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MCKEY, D. 1975. The ecology of coevolved seed dispersal systems. Pp. 159–191 in Gilbert, L. E. & Raven, P. H. (eds). Coevolution of animals and plants. University of Texas Press, Austin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MEYER, C. F. J. & KALKO, E. K. V. 2008. Bat assemblages on neotropical land-bridge islands: nested subsets and null model analyses of species co-occurrence patterns. Diversity and Distributions 14:644–654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MITCHELL, R. J., HIERS, J. K., O'BRIEN, J. J., JACK, S. B. & ENGSTROM, R. T. 2006. Silviculture that sustains: the nexus between silviculture, frequent prescribed fire and conservation of biodiversity in longleaf pine forests of the southeastern United States. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 36:2724–2736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MURRAY, G. K. 1987. Selection for optimal fruit-crop size in bird dispersed plants. American Naturalist 129:18–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NOMA, N. & YUMOTO, T. 1997. Fruiting phenology of animal-dispersed plants in response to winter migration of frugivores in a warm temperate forest on Yakushima Island, Japan. Ecological Research 12:119–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
POONSWAD, P., CHUAILUA, P., PLONGMAI, K. & NAKKUNTOD, S. 1998. Phenology of some Ficus species and utilization of Ficus sources in Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. Pp. 227–244 in Poonswad, P. (ed.). The Asian hornbills: ecology and conservation, Thai studies in biodiversity No 2. BIOTEC, NSTDA, Bangkok.Google Scholar
SHANAHAN, M. & COMPTON, S. G. 2001. Vertical stratification of figs and fig-eaters in a Bornean lowland rain forest: how is canopy different? Plant Ecology 153:121–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SHANAHAN, M., SO, S., COMPTON, S. & CORLETT, R. 2001. Fig-eating by vertebrate frugivore: a global review. Biological Reviews 76:529–572.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
SOUTHWOOD, T. R. E. 1978. Ecological methods with particular reference to the study of insect populations. (Second edition). Chapman & Hall Press, London. 524 pp.Google Scholar
TERBORGH, J. 1986. Keystone plant resources in the tropical forest. Pp. 330–334 in Soulé, M. E. (ed.). Conservation biology. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
VÁZQUEZ, D. P., MORRIS, W. F. & JORDANO, P. 2005. Interaction frequency as a surrogate for the total effect of animal mutualists on plants. Ecology Letters 8:1088–1094.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VÁZQUEZ, D. P., MELIAN, C. J., WILLIAMS, N. M., BLUTHGEN, N., KRASNOV, B. R. & POULIN, R. 2007. Species abundance and asymmetric interaction strength in ecological networks. Oikos 116:1120–1127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WILLSON, M. F. & WHELAN, C. J. 1989. Ultraviolet reflectance of fruits of vertebrate-dispersed plants. Oikos 55:341–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WORTHEN, W. B. 1996. Community composition and nested-subset analyses: basic descriptors for community ecology. Oikos 76:417–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ZHOU, Z. K. & GILBERT, M. G. 2003. Moraceae. Flora of China 5:21–73.Google Scholar
ZHU, H. 2006. Forest vegetation of Xishuangbanna, south China. Forestry Studies in China 8:1–58.Google Scholar
ZHU, H., WANG, H., LI, B. & SIRIRUGSA, P. 2003. Biogeography and floristic affinities of the limestone flora in Southern Yunnan, China. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 90:444–465.CrossRefGoogle Scholar